Roadside Sisters

by Roadside Sisters (epub)

  ‘I never really had the time for friendships. I’ve always somehow thought that one day, when I wasn’t so busy, I’d do all that. As if friendships might be something to reward myself with for all my hard work. But in the meantime I’ve gotten old. And every time I think about making friends, it seems harder and harder.’

  Meredith paused here to fight down the heaving tide of unhappiness rising in her chest that threatened to spill into tears. ‘I neglected my kids too. I’m not even friends with my own daughter. The thing that worries me most is that they’ll have children, and I won’t see them. And then what will it have all been for?’

  Nina groped under the covers for Meredith’s hand, found it and squeezed. ‘That won’t happen,’ she whispered.

  Meredith squeezed a silent ‘thanks’ in return, but continued: ‘It’s exactly what will happen. Sigrid’s in Byron, Jarvis will be in London . . .’

  Meredith felt Annie swiping in the darkness for her other hand and reached to catch it. ‘Don’t forget, Meredith,’ she said, ‘that you did give them life . . . and inspiration. They’ll always respect you for following your dream. And by the time they have kids, you’ll be able to leave the shop and go visit. You’ve left already, and for all anyone knows you could be walking with Jarvis and pushing a stroller through Notting Hill right now.’

  Meredith snorted: ‘I wish I was!’

  ‘You’ll make it work,’ added Annie.

  ‘Do you think?’

  ‘I’m sure of it,’ Annie comforted. ‘It’s the same for you, Nina. That’s why you have to open your café.’

  ‘It’s funny’—Nina tucked the remains of her chocolate under her pillow—‘I’m worried that if I just stay home for all the boys’ lives, they’ll imagine that’s all women can do—wash sheets, make pancakes and wait on them.’

  Meredith was sure of herself on this point: ‘They’ll be flat-out finding a wife, if that’s what they’re after. Girls these days can’t even make toast!’

  Annie agreed. ‘Life’s changed so much since our mothers were young. I see young women at work all the time who have no idea what it’d be like if some man said they couldn’t follow their hearts.’

  ‘And maybe that’s just as well.’ Meredith continued the thought. ‘Why should they care? It’s what we wanted for ourselves and our daughters, isn’t it? To be able to choose how we live our lives.’ The thought that her own daughter was doing exactly that made Meredith pause. ‘Although, they’ll never know how liberating it was not to give a rat’s about shaving your legs. I adored the old “mohair stocking”.’

  Annie laughed out loud. ‘Jeez, I haven’t heard that expression for years!’

  ‘What about you, Annie?’ asked Nina. ‘I always feel so awful when I hear myself going on and on about my family and then remembering you don’t have one . . .’

  ‘I love hearing about your life!’ Annie propped herself on one elbow. ‘Don’t you ever think I don’t! I think you’re amazing the way you run your house and the store and care for everyone the way you do. If I was just surrounded by other single women moaning about not being married, it wouldn’t be much of a life, would it?’

  ‘What about a husband?’

  ‘Marriage? I don’t know. But I would like someone to share my life with. Stand next to me. I just have to keep believing there’s someone waiting for me, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m sure there is,’ stated Meredith. ‘I’m positive.’

  ‘You know what I just realised?’ said Nina. ‘None of us has sisters . . .’ And then the realisation of what she had just said made her sit up. ‘Oh God! I mean, you know . . . apart from Lizzie. I’m so sorry, Annie, I didn’t mean . . . Oh Jesus, I’m so bad. I just never stop and think.’

  At the sound of her dead sister’s name said aloud by someone after so long, something inside Annie’s heart gave way. She gave voice to the charge she had levelled at herself every day for more than thirty years: ‘It was my fault. I was supposed to be looking after Lizzie that afternoon.’ And then Annie was gulping down tears that threatened to drown her, right where she lay.

  Meredith was now sitting up too, clutching at Nina’s arm. ‘No, no . . .’ they began.

  ‘Mum told me to watch her. But she was always running off and I was looking for her in the hay shed and the chook shed, in the garden . . . and I . . . I just couldn’t find her . . . and all that time she was . . .’

  Annie turned her face into her pillow and wept. Meredith and Nina held each other, listening until the muffled sobbing slowed.

  Nina cried in sympathy for her friend. ‘How sad for you. To blame yourself all this time for something that couldn’t possibly have been your fault. I love you, Annie.’

  Tears slid down Meredith’s face too as she spoke. ‘What a dreadful thing to have happen to you. I can imagine you as a dear little girl, so full of life and joy. To have all that stolen from you. You deserve to find peace and love in this life, and if I can help you find it, I promise I will. I love you too.’

  Annie’s chest shuddered, slowed and calmed. She saw the great eye of the dam flutter and close its lid over the stagnant depths. She could hear the water rushing past her ears in the nearby channel. It swept her thoughts along with it away into the creek and she slept.

  The moon was high when Meredith was woken by a rustling in the thicket of mangroves not far from her head. For one moment there she imagined she was back home in Armadale listening to Donald on the other side of the bed, snoring to beat the band. Then she took in the ghostly form of the RoadMaster shining in the moonlight, and remembered where she was. Nowhere.

  The rhythmic squelching of mud nearby was accompanied by a low grunting. It was a sound Meredith could not identify. She sat bolt upright. It came from an animal. A big one. That could mean only one thing—crocodiles! She leapt to her feet, dragging the doona with her, hit her head on the broom handle and brought the plastic sheeting down.

  ‘Annie! Nina! I told you! They’re out there,’ she babbled. ‘We’ve got to get inside now!’

  Nina flailed her arms, still dreaming she was beneath a life raft in the mid-Atlantic, and trying to find Leonardo DiCaprio among a floating tangle of wooden planks, dead bodies and chunks of ice. She cleared the plastic and stood unsteadily, gulping air and thanking Almighty God that she still lived.

  Meredith was frantically wrestling with the front door of the van when Annie woke from a deep sleep and couldn’t remember where the hell she was either. At that moment the roar of an engine cut through the night and the camp was blasted with blinding floodlights. Meredith, Annie and Nina stood shielding their eyes, transfixed like proverbial rabbits.

  ‘What the fuck are youse doing here?!’ came a voice. Deep, male and rough as guts.

  ‘Three little suckling pigs by the look of them,’ chuckled another male voice.

  Annie thought of the stories of horrific abductions and murders in the Australian outback and felt for the broom handle. Then Nina saw the silhouette of a gun in the headlights and screamed as if to wake the dead.

  Annie peered through the flywire of the front door at the mud-splattered monster LandCruiser ute parked in the driveway under the porch light. Cigarette smoke curled out of both windows.

  Trevor Baum, macadamia nut farmer, appeared at her elbow and thrust a cup of hot coffee at her. ‘Here you go. You’re lucky they saw you before they started blasting. Bloke next door got his quad bike shot last week. He’d parked it by a tree and gone off for a leak and . . . Boom! One stuffed petrol tank.’

  Annie grinned at the tale and gratefully sipped at the strong, milky brew.

  ‘But those blokes do a bloody good job. Feral pigs are a real menace out here. You should see the friggin’ mess they make. They wreck everything. Go and have a look before your van gets towed in the morning and tell those idiot animal rights greenies back in the city.’

  ‘I’m from the country. I know what you’re talking about.’ Annie nodded in agreement. ‘City people have got no
damn idea.’ She slurped her coffee and turned to see Meredith down the hallway cradling the telephone.

  ‘Hello. Is Sigrid there? This is her mother speaking.’ Meredith heard her own voice echoing down the telephone line—absurdly formal, considering she was barefoot and wearing an Aran-knit fishing jumper over a singlet and a pair of shorts.

  She paused to bestow a good-natured grin upon Mrs Bev Baum, who was blinking, watching her as she stood on the synthetic caramel-coloured carpet. The reproduction Swiss cuckoo clock on the wall chimed an accusing eleven o’clock.

  ‘Mrs Dalrymple?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m Charlie! I can’t believe I’m talking to you. Sigrid and I are getting married in less than forty-eight hours.’

  Meredith held the phone closer to her right ear and jammed her finger in her left. She must be mistaken—she thought she’d heard the young woman on the other end of the line say she was marrying Sigrid.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ said Meredith. ‘Who did you say you were?’

  ‘I’m Charlotte Newson, but everyone calls me Charlie,’ the girlish voice burbled on. ‘We are so looking forward to you being here. There’s not that many mothers who would be able to deal with all this. Siggie reckons you’ve been great. I’m looking forward to breakfast before the wedding. That means we can spend the whole day together. We’ve got so much brilliant stuff planned. My mum’s here too. You’ll get along fine. It means so much to us that you’re coming.’

  ‘Is Sigrid there?’ Meredith repeated the question—it was all she could think to say under the circumstances.

  ‘She’s asleep. I can go and get her if you like, but I’m sure you know she’s pretty grumpy when she gets woken up.’

  ‘No, no, that’s fine, just leave her,’ Meredith stuttered.

  ‘Are you sure? Can I give her a message?’

  It was a female voice, Meredith was sure of that now.

  ‘Just tell her that I was hoping to get to Byron tomorrow afternoon, but that I’ve been . . . delayed. It looks like I won’t be there until the early evening, or later.’

  ‘Fine. No problem. I’ll tell her. We’re picking up Jarvis from Ballina airport in the morning. Don—Mr Dalrymple—got here yesterday. Do you want to speak to him?’

  ‘No, no. That will be fine . . . er . . .’

  ‘You can call me Charlotte if you want, but I’m much more of a Charlie, to tell you the truth. Imagine k.d. lang—but with curly blonde hair.’

  Meredith could not imagine any such thing.

  ‘Well, we’ll see you tomorrow then. Call us the minute you get into Byron.’

  ‘Bye, bye then,’ Meredith whispered. She hung up the phone and stretched her hand to the flock wallpaper to keep upright.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea? You look a bit peaky,’ offered Bev, tugging at the belt of her lavender chenille dressing gown. ‘Are you alright?’

  ‘I’m fine, really, just . . . fine. Fine,’ replied Meredith.

  Annie clapped her hands for attention. ‘Well then, we’d better be off. We’ve left our friend Nina out there at the mercy of the crabs. Thank you so much for the use of your phone. You’ve both been so kind.’ Annie edged her way back to the front door.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to stay? We’ve got a spare bedroom. And there’s the couch . . .’ Bev indicated a small floral two-seater now occupied by a hulking, panting rottweiler.

  ‘No, really. Like Meredith said, we’re fine. We’ve got everything we need for the night. Thanks again.’

  ‘Here’s some nuts.’ Trevor shoved a cardboard box of macadamias in her direction, and then adjusted his scrotum through his scarlet satin boxer shorts. ‘One day they’ll be one of the nation’s prominent sources of bio-fuel, because their smoke-point is one of the highest of any—’

  ‘Thank you!’ sang Annie in a desperate attempt to fend off the recitation of the remainder of Trevor’s 101 Handy Macadamia Nut Facts.

  She turned and bolted, her thongs slapping on the concrete front steps and down the path to the ute. She threw the box of nuts into the back and hauled herself up on the metal truck-tray, dragging Meredith up after her.

  ‘Are youse right?’ came the yell from the driver’s window.

  ‘Hang on tight ladies!’ came the courtesy safety warning from the passenger’s side.

  With an ostentatious skid on the gravel that tipped the truck sideways and threatened to chuck both Meredith and Annie head-first into a rock garden populated with plaster jabiru, they were on their way. The vehicle blasted out the driveway and pelted back down to the dead end of Mangrove Creek Road.

  Were they having an adventure now? The rush of damp night air blasted Annie’s curls from her scalp as the truck barrelled down the track. She knew that she, definitely, was. Annie couldn’t recall the last time she’d shared the back of a LandCruiser with a massive dead feral pig as she headed into the depths of a mangrove swamp at midnight.

  ‘Yahoooo!’ she screamed, and punched a hole into the dank darkness.

  Meredith, standing next to her and gripping a metal bar, was silent. Pig blood was dripping onto the tray of the truck and she could feel the disgusting stuff, still warm, on her feet. The putrid smell of the dead brute made her sick to her stomach. Her hair felt as if it was being torn out, root by root, in the whistling wind. Her mind was paralysed, still back in the muffled hallway of the Baum farmhouse. All she could hear was the insistent ‘bong, bong, bong’ of a fake cuckoo clock chiming the death of a long-cherished dream.

  ‘Can I get you something, Davo? Chook?’ Nina was hobbling around the illuminated campsite, imagining she was back in her kitchen and able to rustle up a nice cup of tea and freshly baked Anzac biscuits for a couple of visiting Mormons.

  In fact, what was on offer was half a bottle of merlot, hazelnut chocolate and the remains of a jar of jalapeno dip. The two men standing in silhouette in front of the headlights of the giant humming ‘pig-rig’ looked like they’d much rather sit down to a supper of fried evangelist and beer.

  From what Annie had gleaned, they were professional pig shooters from the nearby town of Coaldale. The ugly, bristle-haired, seventy-kilogram boar hanging upside down off the metal frame was destined for dog food. It had been shot through the head with a bolt action Winchester 243 rifle. Annie had been excited to inspect the gun. She’d been handy with a rifle on rabbit-shooting expeditions back home. Nina could only marvel at Annie’s ease around these rough blokes who made the average AFL player look like a schoolboy.

  ‘We’re right! No probs!’ Davo spat into the dirt. ‘We might head back home. There’s another huge bastard out there somewhere, but he’s well gone now.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Nina as she nervously tried to peer beyond the wall of dense vegetation. ‘I don’t know how we’ll get back to sleep knowing it’s there.’

  Chook moved to put Nina’s mind at ease: ‘A bloody sight better than you would having us going at it with the rifles. Sometimes we have to slit their throats to finish ’em off, and they squeal like netballers.’

  Davo leaned forward to slap his jeans and laugh heartily at this image. Nina clamped her hand over her mouth in horror.

  ‘So,’ Chook continued, ‘youse all set then? The roadside assist will be here first thing. They’ll probably put the whole rig on the back of a truck and cart you into Maclean. Fix the old “Heartbreak Hotel” on the spot.’

  ‘Heartbreak Hotel! Good one!’ Davo pointed to the Elvis decal on the side of the van and guffawed again. Obviously Chook was the wit of the outfit and had Davo in his thrall.

  ‘Can we give you some money?’ Annie offered. ‘You’ve been to so much trouble for us. We really appreciate it.’

  ‘Nah! No way, darlin’.’ Chook waved her away with a meaty hand.

  ‘Well, at least let me give you these.’ Annie reached into the shadows and handed over two bottles of champagne.

  Davo examined a label by the LandCruiser’s headlights. ‘Fuck me! French! The
missus’ll think it’s Christmas!’

  ‘If I come home with a dead feral pig and champagne, I might even get a root out of it,’ Chook deadpanned.

  Davo laughed again. ‘Come on, you stupid bastard—let’s get goin’.’

  The two men climbed into their rig, slammed the doors, revved the engine and executed a neat three-point turn in the gravel. It was the kind of turn the disabled RoadMaster Royale had no hope of making on the narrow road. They paused long enough for Chook to lean out the window. ‘Relax! The worst that can happen is that the mozzies get ya, and the crabs and spiders finish ya off. Night, ladies!’

  Over the throaty surge of the ute’s engine, Davo’s high-pitched staccato laugh could be heard echoing through the swamp. The tail-lights receded and the camp was once again plunged into darkness.

  There was one more sound that could now be heard over the orchestra of frogs croaking, mosquitoes buzzing and nameless creatures burrowing through the inky muddy slop, and that was Meredith’s low and heart-wrenching sobs.

  ‘It doesn’t mean you won’t be a grandmother,’ said Annie. ‘In fact, there’s a lesbian in one of our offices who’s got twins. They did it with artificial insemination. The kids have got two mothers and a father. It all works. They’re a great family.’

  Meredith heard only one word out of this entire speech—the word ‘lesbian’.

  ‘Or they could adopt,’ Nina helpfully added. ‘Oprah’s done lots of stories about female couples who have adopted kids, and I admire them. I really do.’

  Who knew what time it was now on Mangrove Creek Road? The moon had dropped and was just peeking over the top of the trees. None of them imagined they would get to sleep any time soon. This was an emotional emergency and it was all hands on deck.

  Besides, the spectre of a giant feral pig crashing through the undergrowth was enough to keep them awake until dawn. They were now all piled into the same double bed for reasons of safety—Meredith and Annie up one end, and Nina down the other end with her bad ankle hanging off the mattress onto the road.